


Picturing the future (finding your way forward via the past)

by ashcat



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-22
Updated: 2010-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:12:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashcat/pseuds/ashcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal finds himself coping with the ups and downs of the new developments in his relationship with Peter and Elizabeth by talking to Kate about it. - Written for White Collar Swap challenge on livejournal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picturing the future (finding your way forward via the past)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hoosierbitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosierbitch/gifts).



> Huge thank you to afiawri and daria234 for both the beta, fantastic suggestions, cheerleading, and their constant friendship and encouragement.

Neal knew the exact moment when things changed. He hadn't drawn anything related to that morning, it was already permanently etched in his mind.

The morning he woke up was like any of the others. It was a Sunday and he'd awoken to Peter's arm and leg thrown over him, warm and comfortable. Satchmo licked his face, because he knew Neal would take him out.

He had thought to himself, as he struggled to wake fully, that he _wanted_ this. Not just for the next few weeks or months, but for forever. That he'd been in love with them for awhile now. He'd just deliberately deluded himself about it.

And then he knew, he'd betrayed Kate. He had let his heart leave her memory, that here he was not only in love with another woman, but a man as well.

Neal was shaken once he had his realization. He'd pulled away when Peter had ruffled his hair on the way to the shower, shied back from Elizabeth's attempts to share a syrup coated kiss with him after breakfast. Neal ended up asking for some time, a bit of space to work things out for himself.

Neal hadn't felt guilty when they first gotten together. He'd enjoyed himself thoroughly, between making breakfast with Elizabeth in the mornings and Peter riding him until he nearly passed out at night, life was wonderful. More so than it had any right to be given his precarious legal position and with Kate being gone.

Knowing he loved them changed everything though.

He spent the next few days thinking about how to reconcile his past and present. He talked to Mozzie, since he'd known him through Kate (despite his objections) and the Burkes (also despite his more vigorous objections).

Moz knew better than to say that Kate would have wanted him to be happy; they both knew Kate would have wanted Neal to grieve for her forever. Moz usually told Neal the truth, even when he didn't want to hear. After much discussion Mozzie hit upon a workable idea.

"If you think she'll feel left out then tell her about it. Your new life, both good and bad. You won't be forgetting her and then she can keep up with you." Mozzie had stopped cleaning his glasses and placed them back on his face. "After all, Kate always loved a good story."

Neal had smiled his small, real smile because he knew that was true. Kate loved being in on a secret, knowing all of what he was thinking and though Neal had been very taciturn about his private thoughts and feelings on anything not related to her, now he could share something that he didn't feel like he could talk to anyone about.

It'd be good, for the both of them.

*

That night, Neal began his first painting for Kate. He had always had an easier time expressing his feelings through images or acts instead of words. He had hidden his meaning so well that by the time he was finished, June had merely commented on the use of perspective for the slice of city street he had painted on the 1'x1' canvas. However, Neal explained to Kate when he took it to her grave to show her, that it was in fact a painting of one of the corners that Neal and Peter often stopped at while out on a jog. He held it up and described how he'd done it from Satchmo's perspective since he usually accompanied them on their runs.

Neal begun his first story for Kate by talking about how stopped at that corner on a muggy Saturday morning was the first time Neal had felt like he was a part of something with Peter and Elizabeth. That he was a welcomed partner, instead of an outsider looking in. They had been lightheartedly bickering back and forth, as usual, waiting for the light to turn.

Neal, wiping sweat from his brow, had countered one of Peter's brush offs with, "But I enjoy cooking. It's a chance to be creative, without having to look at your work in the morning. Well, it would be if someone would do the dishes when he should." Neal cut his eyes at Peter, smiling.

Peter paused a minute and said, "Then you can cook on the nights I usually do."

And with that, they talked at length about other changes that Neal would feel more comfortable with, like cleaning out the guest room closet so that Neal could store more than a couple outfits and a sketchbook there. That they could change laundry detergents since theirs made Neal itch in delicate places.

Nothing earth shattering, but as Neal and Peter jogged back towards the house, he realized this is how 'normal' couples behaved. That he was actually _part_ of a normal, white picket fence type of relationship.

When Neal finished the story, he reminisced with Kate about how he and she had never had that experience. They had never stayed anywhere long enough to worry about what laundry detergent to buy or divvy up cooking nights. And while he had wanted that for them, he wasn't foolish enough to believe that that would have ever been enough for her.

Neal pressed a kiss to her headstone, the granite cool against his lips, and bid her farewell. He walked away with a spring in his step, the first time he felt cheerful after one of his weekly visits to her grave.

A few days later, he proudly displayed the painting by 'his' closet at the Burkes. Neal caught Peter's grin when he saw it the next day. He made a show of pausing to study the painting closely, remarking on the location it depicted.

Peter often praised his legal artistic pursuits, as though his approval alone could keep Neal on the 'straight and narrow'. (Well if you listened to Moz then apparently that was true, but Neal wasn't quite so sure himself.)

After that, Neal mostly sketched for his story dates with Kate. He almost always had pencil and paper nearby, and if not he had a small moleskine notebook and pen in his pocket at all times.

*

It was a few weeks later that he spent the better part of a boring departmental meeting sketching on a post-it of how Peter's lips look when he's intent. Neal thought he was probably thinking about the current policy being dictated to them, how it would impact the team.

Later that week Neal took the post it with him to his weekly visit with Kate, and spent half an hour telling her how fair Peter is and how hard it was for Neal to live within the confines of his honorable view of the world.

Kate would have laughed her head off. And indeed, Neal imagined her doing so as he kept talking. She wouldn't have seen any reason to adhere to another's moral code, whether lover, friend, or enemy. She had walked her own path, and while she enjoyed seeing Neal caught up in the finer lines of his own code, she'd never wanted to adopt his or impose hers upon him. It's one of the reasons they got along so well together.

Differences in their beliefs was one of the main things that worried Neal about his new life with Peter and Elizabeth.

Because even though Neal loves Peter and Elizabeth, would move heaven and earth to protect them, he's not sure he can renounce who he's been for them. If he were to do that, shed the skin of his old life, he's not sure what he'd find lurking underneath. He'd been Neal Caffrey, brilliant social engineer, artist, and free spirit for so many years, he couldn't really remember what he had been before. What he did remember, he didn't think Peter or Elizabeth would be satisfied, let alone happy, with.

Neal was sure that Kate wouldn't have been happy with who he _was_ , and he didn't refrain from telling her that now as he would have if she were still physically here.

Yet, it wasn't that Neal wasn't without his own sense of honor. He had a highly developed moral code, just, it wasn't dictated by the narrow focus of the law or societal norms. He sometimes felt so stifled by Peter's strict adherence to his own rigid standards That even if Neal could manage to stay somewhat within the lines of it, that he'd be completely choked off and would wither without the sunlight to nourish his creativity and imagination.

Then as he spoke to Kate, Neal remembered that Peter isn't all black and white. Peter was always able to live within a lot of gray, just as Neal was. After all, as he explained to Kate, Peter and Elizabeth's relationship with Neal, their love _for_ Neal was just one example of that.

*

A few weeks later, Neal spent an hour drawing Elizabeth in bed. He detailed her breast, how the right nipple barely peeked out from the covers, the tiny wrinkles in her left areola as it contracted from the cold. He shaded her hand carefully, depicting its position near her face like she was about to slap someone. It was a fair assumption. Elizabeth was not a morning person.

Neal made sure to take his sketchbook with him when he visited Kate the next week. As Neal showed the drawing to Kate's headstone, he told her how much he missed making love with her. She and he had been completely in sync with frequency and timing, their sex life had been nearly perfect even if their relationship was often rocky outside of it.

Neal was definitely not as compatible with either of the Burkes in that respect.

The first time Neal realized this, he was nearly elbowed in the face by Elizabeth for trying to initiate morning sex. He had woken up hard, as usual, and unusually there was a beautiful woman in bed with him.

Peter was already in the shower, but Elizabeth was right beside him. She was wearing a tiny baby doll that was rucked up over her hip, showing off a creamy expanse of thigh exquisitely. It beckoned Neal's fingers, invited him to skim them across her soft skin. After drinking in the sight, he scooted over so that he could nestle his eager cock between her thighs.

Neal tried shifting her more onto her side, reaching out to run cool fingertips over her nipples. They were huge, springy nubs, and so sensitive despite their size. He had only began touching them, his cock sandwiched between her thighs, when she woke up flailing.

Neal had taken a direct hit to his rib and a near miss to his chin as he scrambled to get away. After much bickering and hurt feelings later, Neal learned that Elizabeth was _not_ a morning person and he would need to make do with his hand when he woke up horny in the future.

Neal paused to reminisce with Kate about how she would responded as he tweaked her little nipples, waking slowly with his cock ready to enter her. Her hair always smelled like lavender in the morning, she'd sprinkle a few drop on her pillow before bed. Neal still kept a small bottle of it by his bed at June's, he'd sprinkled it on his pillow often since getting out of prison.

Peter wasn't any better. Neal had tried to sidle up to him in the shower on another morning, never one to be deterred by one bad outcome. He had rubbed soapy hands all over Peter's muscular body, inviting him to return the favor. Peter was more amenable to touch than his wife, but he also wasn't interested in morning sex. The best Neal could hope for was a quick hand job in the shower, and that was only if Peter was in a particularly charitable mood.

Neal wasn't happy with the current arrangement. He loved the slow morning lovemaking that he and Kate often indulged in. In prison, he'd often imagined being buried in her warm heat as he touched himself before the lights came on for six a.m. wake up call. He would write to her about it, using flowery euphemisms of course, and now he spoke to her about it plainly. Kate would have no use for euphemisms now.

Now, three years later, he was still stuck touching himself when he woke up, though this time he at least had a real woman beside him to fantasize about. And hey, he could always go try to con more out of Peter in the shower. Neal had high hopes that eventually he'd convince him that nailing Neal against the wall of the shower was a fantastic morning activity.

Neal knew Kate would get a kick out of his situation. She'd sympathize with him on missing out on morning sex though.

*

The Burkes, however, were insatiable in the evenings. He realized that he was outmatched by their outrageous libidos when Peter pressed him down onto the kitchen table and Elizabeth hiked up her skirt to straddle his face and all he could think was, 'Good lord we just had sex two hours ago, what's wrong with you?'

He had gone along with them, but that night he'd felt a bit used and abused after they'd both dropped off to sleep. He massaged his sore jaw while his bottom felt hollowed out in a bad way.

Neal had stayed the night, but in the morning he'd returned to June's and began sketching an abstract piece for Kate. As he drew delicate curves and harsh jagged lines leading nowhere, he tried to put that hollow feeling onto paper. She would have called him overdramatic but they both knew that's part of what she loved about him.

After waiting a couple of days to feel more himself, he took the drawing with him to visit Kate's grave. Earlier than usual, he felt he needed to talk to her now instead of later. Neal told Kate the story of the Burkes combined sex drives triumph over his.

How, at first he'd tried to handle it by hiding out at June's every fourth night to get a break. He invented different excuses like June needing his help with Bugsy or his expert opinion on authenticating certain antiques. Then Mozzie needed someone to play Pai Gow with. Or look, there was a lovely exhibit that he just had to attend, and it'd be better if he went alone, so he could concentrate on the art and not be distracted by his sexy lovers.

Neal explained to Kate how he felt silly dodging them due to his own weakness, but that seemed the best course of action when he felt so unstable in his place with the Burkes.

Of course, it wasn't long before Peter became suspicious.

"Neal. What are you hiding?" Peter asked with no preamble one night after dinner.

Neal shifted on the couch, carefully assuming a relaxed posture. "A passionate affair with a Gaugin?" He replied, trying for humor.

Elizabeth frowned. "Do you not want to have sex with us anymore?"

Neal held his body still as his face morphed, eyes wide, expression open and guileless. "Of course I want to continue having sex with you. I enjoy being in a relationship with you both."

"So why are you making up excuses to get away from us every few days?" Peter asked, shifting so that he faced Neal.

"I like to have my space too?" Neal shrugged, trying to keep his voice light.

Elizabeth looked uncertain. "You can have space honey, if that's what you need."

"You can have space in the guest room, you can have space after you come over for dinner," Peter replied.

Neal felt a bit panicked. His body couldn't take that much sex and he wasn't going to admit that. "Kate and I were never in each others’ pockets Peter. It's not something I'm used to."

Neal smiled when he told Kate how Elizabeth nodded; she was always great about giving Neal openings to exit difficult conversations, unlike Kate or Peter.

Peter was never so easy. He was always direct, always needing to know what Neal was thinking and feeling before Neal had time to sort it out for himself. So it came as no surprise when Peter interjected before Elizabeth could let him off. "I think something's bothering you. This is a great con you have going right now, you even look mostly sincere, but I _know_ you."

And it went on like that, Neal was grilled until he finally admitted that the daily rough sex was too much. That he wanted a break. And that maybe... they could have more of the sex that _Neal_ preferred. Slow, gentle, controlled intercourse, in addition to the frenzied twenty minutes of wild, rough, sex that Peter and Elizabeth enjoyed.

Neal, if he was totally honest with Kate, was surprised when things changed. In the past, he'd had lovers who would talk a good game, but in the end he either bent to their will or they found someone else. That included Kate herself on issues except sex; she knew what she wanted and Neal was willing to bend until he finally broke accommodating her.

With the Burkes, it was different. Peter and Elizabeth, they accommodated _him_ , and if they wanted sex and he’d had enough, then they went at it like dogs in heat as Neal watched and often sketched. It was amazing, the emotions that played over their features when they were grunting and moaning, Peter's hips furiously pounding into Elizabeth or Elizabeth's thighs quivering with the strain of going faster as she rode Peter on the sofa after dinner.

Watching them, he didn't feel excluded as he had originally when they did this, or feel threatened with respect to their relationship. He felt respected, and that his opinion and feelings were important to them. It filled spots in his heart that had long been void, because he was bathed in their love and acceptance of his differing desires from theirs. Feelings that others had found undesirable.

He drew a sketch of them having sex just inside the doorway, Elizabeth's panties still around one ankle, her stockings rolling down mid thigh unclipped from her garter. Peter still in his suit, just the coat lay crumpled on the floor. The way they looked at one another, their bodies moving as one perfectly timed machine, was beautiful. It was also very erotic, and Neal had used it as masturbation fodder for a few weeks before he showed it to Kate.

He was pretty sure she'd have used it to get off to, too.

*  
It wasn't all sex related though. After they worked out their frequency issues, Neal spent more nights at the Brukes than he did in his rooms even though June had kindly let him keep them (and Mozzie helpfully kept his bed warmed for him there). The whole of their domestic lives had become more awkward to negotiate once Neal had mostly moved in with them.

Neal hadn't taken anything with him when he went to discuss his new living arrangements with Kate. He'd sat by her grave and told her about the oddest thing with the Burkes.

Peter and Elizabeth had ten years of marital rituals and habits, and Neal felt like an interloper he admitted to Kate, as he tried to decode them. They could look at one another and apparently have a whole conversation through blinks and eyebrow twitches.

After a minute of silence they would then look at Neal and start talking about a new topic or issue, something that Neal saw no links to in their previous conversation. It was uncanny and also fascinating to watch.

While creepily intimidating, Neal was secretly impressed. That'd be a very useful ability to have in a heist. He'd never had that with anyone, definitely not Kate. Hell, before seeing it with the Burkes he hadn't known it even existed outside of bad sitcoms, hadn't known how badly he'd want to have that with someone.

*

He was also impressed at how easily he was... absorbed into the Burkes' routines. Little things that made him feel loved when he noticed them. And Neal noticed everything. Such as how Elizabeth started leaving the olives off the salad after watching Neal carefully eat around them. Or how his favorite meals seemed to be in more frequent rotation. Now there was both whole wheat and plain bagels in the backers dozen bag that Peter buys every Sunday morning, and the fridge always has salmon cream cheese that Neal knows for a fact that Peter hates.

Sure they were small things, but these were the things that Neal always felt meant so much when speaking to the permanence of their relationship.

He never told Kate about a single one. They were too private to share, even with her.

*

Once Neal had moved in, it was more apparent than ever that he and Satch were great pals. He took over most of Satchmo's care, and they were both happy with that. He'd not had a dog of his own since he was a small child.

He drew many pictures of Satchmo, trying to render his fur perfectly. He talked to Kate at length about Satch's doggy antics when they both needed a nice calming topic of conversation. It was so easy to wedge it between bigger issues he needed to talk to Kate about, like how he was now considering actually giving up his criminal ways for Peter and Elizabeth, or that he was only falling more in love with them as time went on.

Kate and he had often talked of getting a dog, a small breed so they could take it with them. But they never were able to stay in any one place long enough. Neal had already had his heart broken by the strays he and Mozzie were forced to leave behind while fleeing whatever flop house or storage unit they were crashing in as they worked their way up the food chain in the crime world. He wasn't willing to have another pet that he'd be forced to abandon due to their lifestyle.

Having Satch was another benefit of being with the Burkes now. And as Neal told Kate one evening, he intended to keep him around as long as possible. Which meant scolding Elizabeth and Peter when they went to feed him the food from their plates.

The first time Neal saw Elizabeth do it, one night Peter was late getting back from an evening meeting, he was horrified. He literally yelled, "What are you doing?!" and grabbed Satch's collar to jerk him back from the food that Elizabeth was offering.

Elizabeth had been nonchalant about it, not seeing what the big deal was. Neal lectured her for over twenty minutes about the dangers of giving a pet people food. Then he'd given Peter the same lecture and implored him to talk to Elizabeth about it.

Neal drew several sketches of Satchmo 'begging' Elizabeth to save his stomach and health, leaving them in key areas of the kitchen and dining room for her to stumble upon. He brought a few examples with him to show Kate as he told her about it.

Neal had even begun baking dog biscuits from scratch and mixing up special foods for him until Peter said that was enough.

"Satchmo isn't a _child_ after all," Peter had said, dour expression on as he instructed Neal about it.

"He's the only child we'll raise together," Neal said, before he even thought about it.

An awkward silence descended upon them. Elizabeth left the house without a word, followed by Neal leaving for June's where he spent the night.

Afterwards, no one wanted to bring the issue up. So Elizabeth stopped giving Satch people food, at least where Neal could see, and Neal stopped baking for him at the Burkes' house.

Neal did, however, continue bringing drawings of Satch to show Kate, he was sure she liked them.

*

One point of contention, though, that only became more pronounced at Neal's move was Mozzie. Neal should have seen that coming. After all, Kate and he had argued about Moz, about including him on their heists, including him in their bed. She had had to respect his and Moz's prior years of partnership and she'd understood that Neal was loyal to him. Even when Mozzie had been the one to teach him that he shouldn't be loyal to _anyone_.

Kate had eventually bent to Neal's will over this, and Moz had joined them on cons and sometimes in their bed. Neal, however, had quite a few more problems with Peter and Elizabeth's perception of his friend.

Neal had talked to Kate several times about this. He would sit and sketch aimlessly, telling her how he felt he was losing Mozzie. It weighed on him, in a way he couldn't let anyone see, that his lovers and his best friend were at odds

It wasn't that they didn't like Mozzie, or that they felt threatened by his relationship with Neal as Kate had. It was almost as if they liked him too much. Peter had explained to Neal that while Mozzie was a bad influence on Neal at times, he understood Neal's need to still have some links to the past, to people and relationships that meant something to him.

So Peter allowed Mozzie into their lives, and therein lay the problem.

For Peter to be comfortable with that decision, he wanted to spend time with Moz. He wanted to know exactly what he and Neal were up to at any given moment. He said it under the guise of looking out for Neal, but Mozzie saw it as intrusive and overbearing. Neal saw it that way too, but he was more used to Peter's nature so he was better able to understand the concern that lay behind it.

Mozzie shied away in reaction to it. He pulled back from Neal when either Peter or Elizabeth were around. As Neal spent more time at the Burkes he saw less of his friend. That meant that Neal was left with only his dead girlfriend to talk to, and no offense as he said to Kate, but that wasn't healthy, even for his own secretive personality.

On one of Neal's increasingly rare evenings with Moz, he drew a study of his hand, his rings, as he held it pensively against his chin during a particularly difficult chess game. He took it with him the next time he visited Kate. The less he saw of Mozzie the more he talked to Kate about him. He laid the picture upon her head stone as he told her where Mozzie's rings came from, what his real name was, how Neal met him at the perfect time when Neal was just starting out, virtually homeless and completely alone.

He found himself telling increasingly private and personal things to her. Like the details of his and Mozzie's first heist together (and it's spectacularly awful conclusion). He divulged how he received the scar along his collar bone that she liked to lick while they made love. Confessed that he always found himself coming harder when he was in bed with the two of them, Mozzie and Kate, than he ever had separately with either.

He knew Kate would have been as surprised as he when he told her about Peter and Mozzie working out a truce. Neal had largely been left out of it, thankfully; he didn't relish getting between two men he cared a great deal for. And while he had a few suspicions relating to destruction of old evidence, and blood honor promises, he was comfortable not knowing the particulars of how it came about.

No matter the source, Neal was profoundly grateful to be able to have both Mozzie and the Burkes in his life. Because while he thought he might be able to give up the cons, he didn't want to sacrifice his friendships too.

*

He told Kate in death what he hadn't been able to tell her in life, what he hadn't told anyone.

It was practice, because he wanted to be able to tell the Burkes. To share his past, who he really was, with them.

It'd be a gift he could give them that he knew they would appreciate the value of. That Peter especially would treasure a little nugget of Neal's true past. That Peter's trust and understanding of Neal the man, instead of just Neal the con, had grown so that he wouldn't press for more immediately.

He'd give Neal the space and time to tell it at his own pace.

Neal felt safe to share himself with them. That's part of what led to his discovery of how deeply he loved them. When he found himself wanting to tell them the unvarnished truth about himself, about his past. How he'd traveled all over the globe with his career marine father. That he'd lived the other part of his young life with his grandmother until she passed away.

Divulge that it was her passing that prompted him to leave out on his own. He had run mostly blindly until Mozzie lifted Neal’s sketchbook from his pack on an anonymous street corner in New York City. Mozzie had been trying to confirm the rumors of Neal's talent by looking through Neal's drawings. Mozzie had told Neal he had seen his potential from that very moment. Moz had then set about nurturing Neal's creativity and talent, helping turn Neal into the person that he was now.

Neal was _proud_ of who he was. Proud that he had worked hard, had honed his craft, to get where he was now. He took pride in his forgeries and schemes. He didn't have a formal education, but he had still outsmarted the many Harvard trained FBI agents who had chased, or now worked with him. It had taken Peter to catch him, and they both knew that was only because he was _Peter_. And after all, Neal had practically turned himself in.

Thinking back on those days made his present seem even more surreal. Mozzie and Peter's budding friendship meant that now Mozzie came over to the Burkes house fairly regularly. He and Neal played chess, or took turns whipping Peter's butt at it. Sometimes he stayed for dinner, when it was Neal's night to cook at least. They all four had philosophical debates and discussed literature and films after dinner with more than one bottle of wine consumed to keep the social interactions well lubricated.

Neal found himself sketching everyone's eyes and hands over and over on those evenings. The way Elizabeth gave Mozzie a conspiratorial look when talking about Peter and Neal working such long hours, or how Peter's softened with love when his gaze met Neal's. The way Mozzie squinted when he removed his glasses to clean them, his hands holding the frames surely but delicately as well. He took all the pictures to Kate's grave to talk to her about it.

It was really nice to have his friend around in a relaxed environment.

*

On Neal's last visit to talk to Kate, he told her about their first family Thanksgiving, after Neal had officially moved in. It was a comedy of errors, one of those rare confluences of fate that turned out well in the end.

El's parents had gotten grounded in St. Louis due to snow and didn't get there until the next day. Peter's mom had shown up early and wouldn't stop complaining until Peter finally took her on a drive so that the others could have some peace.

Elizabeth burned the turkey and Neal ruined the chutney. The mashed potatoes, however, turned out perfect. Peter opened the wrong bottle of wine, and Neal had to have a whispered argument about how important it was to use the correct one. Peter had heatedly whispered back that he had merely been wondering if he could get his mom to calm down with a little sauce.

Mozzie had decided to celebrate with them too, and brought bread that turned out to be stale. However, his bottle of wine was perfect. In the end, they'd ended up ordering Chinese and having a lovely holiday dinner anyway, with the help of both bottles of wine and good conversation.

Neal had laughed, and talked about how it was his first 'family' Thanksgiving really, and that Kate would have enjoyed it. He told Kate how he'd built his own little family now. Something he'd always wanted even if it hadn't been her dream.

How it felt like _home_ to Neal, there with his 'family' surrounding him.

Neal knew he'd be fine now. He felt, for the first time that Thanksgiving night, that he could let Kate go. That he could embrace his present, and set that nagging pain in his heart free.

Neal said goodbye to her then. He thanked her for loving him as best she could. He thanked her for the good and bad times, and promised her he'd never forget her. Yet, he knew in his heart that he was ready to move on.

He left her a dozen colorful origami frogs lined up along her tombstone. She'd always loved those, smiling when she discovered one he'd hidden for her in their rooms. He could think of no better way to leave her now than in their care.

Kate was on his mind the entire walk back to the Burkes. He knew, he'd never forget her or their time together; but now... he could be free to love Peter and Elizabeth with his whole heart, not with the part for Kate withheld.

He volunteered to take Satch out before bed that night. He needed a few more minutes alone. He stood looking up at the sky, while waiting for Satch to do his business. As he watched, he saw a shooting star.

Neal smiled and whispered, "Goodbye, my former love."

He let himself pretend that it was Kate's sign to him. That she had granted him her blessing to go take his happiness where he had found it, even though it wasn't connected to her any longer.


End file.
